


HCs. Friends to More

by SevlinRipley



Category: It - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, M/M, Makeup, Minor Original Character(s), Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-22 00:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14925642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevlinRipley/pseuds/SevlinRipley
Summary: Stanley's not Richie's room mate at University, but he may as well be.





	HCs. Friends to More

**Author's Note:**

> This is messy and long, and not-quite a fic. I sent this to someone around April 18, 2018 when they asked to have Stozier HCs sent to their inbox, and I successfully overwhelmed and weirded them out haha. SO. I’m finally getting around to posting it myself.

When Stan bites off more than he can chew freshman year of university, and his roommate turns out to be the type of person who blares their music out their headphones, and brings friends over late at night, and grumps about Stanley’s desk lamp being on while he’s trying to sleep, but Stan’s trying to study, Richie makes sure Stan has an extra key to his dorm, because Richie’s roomie is a studier/worrier too, and Richie’s often out, so Stan will have plenty of space.  
  
So Richie comes back to his dorm a lot of the time to find the lights out, and Stanley curled up on his bed, and just strips off his jeans, and climbs in behind him. Or if Stanley is still feverishly studying, but his roomie has fallen asleep at a reasonable hour, blankets over their head, Richie rubs Stan’s shoulders and tells him the books will still be there in the morning, and pulls him into bed so he can actually retain what he was learning. (He starts leaving an extra toothbrush and wash cloth in Richie’s shower caddy, and a change of boxers in case Richie REALLY lets him sleep in too late.) And sometimes, when Richie starts to realize he hasn’t been doing enough studying of his own, cause his grades start slipping, Stan’s always there with flash cards and their knees are on top of each other while they study and Stan throws a skittle for Richie to catch in his mouth each time he gets an answer right. Pinches his thigh when he gets too distracted.  
  
If Richie gets back to the dorm EXCEPTIONALLY late, he brings breakfast back with him to wake Stan up to, and they eat out of the same Styrofoam box, scrambled eggs and french toast and sausage links and coffee with two lumps of sugar. Stan gripes if the food is cold, but his face softens when he sees Richie has a drop of syrup clinging to his lip, and his eyes crinkle with a smile, and… cold breakfast isn’t THAT bad; at least Richie brought two forks so they don’t have to take turns eating. Stanley sometimes worries about Richie staying up literally ALL night, and then going to classes, so he meets Richie in the quad at midday with some Emergen-C and a protein-rich, vitamin B-rich salad. He sits with Richie at the outdoor tables, and makes sure he eats the whole thing, and drinks his whole to-go cup of vitamin C, and then takes Richie’s glasses off. He puts his thumb under Richie’s eye (one at a time) and pulls down, to see how blood-shot Richie’s eyes are.  
  
And if Richie’s not too-jittery, Stan lets him go to his next class, but if Richie looks like he’s about two seconds from passing out, he swings by the class to talk to the professor and ask exiting students if he can use the library copier to copy their notes and give it back to them, so his sick friend doesn’t miss too much of class. Yes, the truth is stretched a little, and no, he doesn’t approve of Richie staying out all night with the drama department but he’ll lecture Richie when he wakes up, and not a moment sooner. He delivers the copied notes to Richie’s dorm, and finds that Richie wasn’t even conscious long enough to pull his bed cover up, so does it for him, after repositioning Richie’s legs, so that they’re actually on the mattress. All before heading to his next class.  
  
He brings dinner from the caf, for the both of them, off his food card, after all his classes are done, and Richie’s had some time to rest. Then he uses Richie’s desk to do homework while Richie reads of the copied notes in his bed. Halfway through, he gets bored, and goes to lay back on the floor, head toward the dorm room door, and crosses his feet together, up on top of Stan’s thigh, where he’s sitting in the desk chair.  
  
“Stan, couldn’t you have vetted the notes a little first? This dude  makes no sense…” “Well maybe you should’ve thought about that before you came home at 7.” And Stan smiles to himself, but he’s actually a little frustrated he didn’t look over the notes, because DAMN. “Can you figure anything out, at all?” he asks a few minutes later, and Richie draws his leg down just enough to poke his tiptoes into the side of Stan’s thigh as he smiles, and says, “Yeah. A lot of it.” rather than a ‘thank you’ - but he knows Stan gets that he’s appreciated anyway, when Stan pinches the top of his foot over his sock, and then shoves his feet off him altogether, causing Richie to laugh too-loud and receive a glare from his room mate.  
  
That night, Richie and Stan go to bed early. Richie’s dorm mate is still studying, so his light is on, and so Richie and Stan are huddled together, completely engulfed in the covers, and Stan’s facing the wall, but Richie’s facing Stan, and he’s a little restless, in his residual exhaustion, and one of Stan’s soft curls is just barely touching his nose, tickling.  
  
And Stan’s bare upper arm is calling to Richie’s fingers, and he could stop the tickle if he buried his nose in Stan’s neck, and his fingers could stop rapping at his own thigh, if he could wrap them around Stan’s bicep, and then maybe, maybe he could close his eyes - which are uselessly stuck open, because his glasses are off and he can’t see and the comforter is a dark navy blue so his vision is practically pixelated anyway, and it feels like he’s staring at some picaso-type painting, and his breathing keeps hitching, and he knows he’s keeping Stan awake with the irregularity of it, because Stan’s not breathing rhythmically either, and his neck tendons are tight, and Stan’s clenching his fist and gritting his teeth wondering if he should just go back to his own bed for the first time in WEEKS because he can’t take Richie breathing against the back of his neck, and being so close and not touching him, for SOME reason, and he makes the barest sound, about to say he’s gonna go home, when Richie’s hand lands on his arm, and Richie’s face presses to his neck and shoulder. Stan instantly finds his body releasing all tension, and he bites into his lower lip and sucks in a deep, steadying breath through his nose. FINALLY. And Richie’s breathing goes even and they both fall asleep, FINALLY.  
  
When they wake up, Richie’s leg is tucked between Stan’s, and his arm is now over Stan’s middle completely. And Richie says, “Morning,” all rough, and maybe a little embarrassed, so Stan shrugs his shoulder into Richie’s chest and - he knows neither of them have an early class, so he reaches up to pat Richie’s cheek, as he’s looking at him from the very corner of his eye and says, “Breakfast, or brunch?” “Brunch,” Richie says, nodding, definitely brunch. So they simultaneously close their eyes for another hour or so, but this time Stan rolls over to face Richie, and Richie’s leg is still between his own, and Richie’s face is still in Stan’s neck, but now Stan’s chin is on top of his head, and it’s HIS arm thrown over RICHIE, and …  
  
Maybe the next day it’s the same, but with tentative hand holding in the space between their stomachs, and instead of shoving Richie’s feet off his thigh while they’re studying, he carefully massages at the pads, and finds Richie’s ticklish spot, and because DormMate is out at the library, he tortures Richie shortly thereafter, until Richie’s softly kicking at Stan’s legs and saying, “Stop! Do you want me to fail?!” And Stan sort of realizes that he’d be okay if they both had to spend an extra year here…

About a week or so down the line, Richie and Stan’s laundry are now officially mixed in the washer and dryers at the laundromat they go to every Sunday night together. Stanley ends up wearing Richie’s clothes as pajamas, and Richie can’t get over how differently his clothes feel on someone else. He looks at them on Stan’s body and it SEEMS familiar, but when he runs his hands over the sleeves or if Stan’s generous enough, down Stan’s chest, it just FEELS brand new, but still cozy in its familiarity.  
  
Richie tries to get Stan to wear his tees to class. “C'mon, it’s just a shirt. No one’s gonna judge you for dressing more casually.” But Stan would; Stan would judge himself. But also, he kind of thinks if he wears Richie’s clothes, with Richie’s scent still lingering on them, that he might start to drift off in class, either by way of daydream or actual sleep, and he can’t have that. So Richie’s clothes remain pajamas and that’s that.  
  
Richie DOES use some of Stan’s button-ups to go over his shirts on windy days, however… “Fair’s fair,” Richie tells him, whenever they both end up coming short on clean clothes at the end of the week. 

But speaking of laundry (and things that might unexpectedly be in one’s laundry,) one night Richie comes back to the dorm to find his room mate sitting beside Stan, with Stan’s arm draped over them, and they’ve got their face in their hands, clearly crying, and Richie is very taken aback, and kind of wants to joke, “Jesus, what’d you do Stan? Steal the last pencil?”  
  
But Stan knows that look, on Richie’s face, and brings his finger to his mouth, preemptively telling him to shut up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Richie’s room mate says, wiping at their eyes, and Stan’s patting them on the back. “We don’t care. Seriously… You’re like, the most patient person ever, and you - you’re fine. You don’t have to worry about us. Ever.” So… it turns out that she identifies as female, and has been having to hide certain things in the dorm, and it was EXHAUSTING. And so finally she just broke down, because she didn’t want to hide anymore, and thought they might be pretty open and understanding, and once all of this is explained to Richie, he’s just… frustrated she would’ve thought he would have judged her from the very beginning, because he SO wouldn’t have.  
  
And while she has their support and their ear, after so long of holding everything inside, and Richie asks if she wants privacy while she dresses, cause Rich can totally leave the room from now on, she says no, she’s fine. She’s used to Richie and considers them both her closest friends, actually… Anyway, she asks them if they think she’d get harassed if she wore makeup, and MAYBE, but also, Richie says, “Fuck gender roles anyway. You, a girl, can wear makeup. I, a guy, can wear makeup. And hell, if you wanna wear makeup, I WILL wear makeup, too. And if anyone gives you shit, you tell 'em it’s a bet we have going about whoever can wear it the longest gets free beer for a year or something.”  
  
So that night she pulls the still-packaged makeup she had hidden in a shoe box under her bed and Richie sits with one leg folded on her mattress while she puts eyeliner on him, and Stan’s just watching as Richie’s eyes tear up as she does his tightline in khol, and swallows, because holy shit… the black really brings out the blue in Richie’s eyes and fuck.  
  
He realizes, unfortunately, that once Richie’s glasses go back on, it’s not really gonna be the same, but at least Stan can be there for the before and after. So then comes a little blush, and just the barest amount of lip gloss, and Richie’s making his room mate laugh, “How do I look? Stanley, am I pretty enough for you to finally kiss me yet?”  
  
And Richie always was, really… but Stanley can’t even jokingly say no, because everything in him is filled with YES. And Richie reads it on him immediately, but they’re still helping her feel better. So after a few minutes, and trying his damndest to do her makeup in return, Richie finally pulls Stanley out to the mostly-unused smoking area behind the building where there’s a solitary security light that provides just enough glaringly blue-white light for Stanley to see the outlining along Richie’s eyes when he takes Richie’s glasses off, folds them up, and puts them in his own front shirt pocket.  
  
He backs Richie up against the wall, pressing the pads of his thumbs to Richie’s cheeks, and if not for the blush already pinking up his cheeks, Richie’d be noticeably caught out, about what Stan’s reaction is doing to him. Stan’s studying him, looking in his eyes, but not AT Richie, really, and then dipping his gaze to the sheen on his lips, and then gently, barely brushing at the blush - either rubbing it in or seeing if he can rub it away, with it’s slight sparkle in the light making Richie look like some kind of nymph with his messy curls down to his shoulders, and his hollow cheeks and his now mascara-curled lashes.  
  
“Stan,” Richie finally breaths. Cause he can’t fucking take it anymore. And Stan loosens his grip, and steps back. Wipes whatever blush he picked up onto his jeans. “Sorry,” Stan says, quickly, cheeks burning. Richie blinks. and then his shoulders drop. Cause REALLY? All THAT and he didn’t even get a kiss? Jesus, Stan! “You should be,” he says, voice all cracked up. And Stan’s brow flinches and then his brain is catching up just a little and he says, “What?” Cause he didn’t actually… mean that he was sorry.  
  
“You SHOULD be sorry,” Richie reiterates. And then smiles at Stan’s frown, the little dip of his single eyebrow that puts a crease between his eyes, and his pursed lips. “Jesus Stan… You can’t just hold a guy’s face like that and not kiss 'im. Where’d you learn those kind of manners?” And slowly, but surely, Stan’s face twitches until he’s letting out a relieved laugh. Richie reaches out, and grabs at Stan’s shirt, pulls him in close again and shoves himself back against the wall.  
  
“So?” Richie asks him, when Stan begins searching his face again, instead of kissing him. STILL. So Stan’s tongue darts out to wet his own lips, and then he’s pressing forward, one side of his hip pressing into Richie’s as he finds a way to get his hand on Richie’s neck to hold him still. And even though Richie was asking for it, he makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat that makes Stan’s heart clench, and the butterflies in his stomach slow as if weighted by warm honey.  
  
It’s hard at first, just because they’re both excited and it’s new but it’s been coming for SO SO long. But then it goes soft, and sweet and their lips are just barely parted against each other, and Richie’s arms eventually relax down to Stan’s hips, from his chest, and Stan’s other hand finds Richie’s neck, too, and his fingers stretch up into the curls at the back of Richie’s head, and the lip gloss is sticky but sweet like strawberry.  
  
When Stan stops, he rests his forehead on Richie’s and heaves out this huge sigh, like he’s been holding his breath for YEARS, and in a way he HAS. And Richie’s hands are clutching at Stan’s waist so tight he might bruise him through his slacks. “God, I should’ve put on makeup forever ago.” And - yes, Stan sort of agrees but also - “It - It wasn’t the makeup. I…” Richie chuckles breathlessly, and tips his head to press a kiss to the tip of Stan’s nose. “I know,” he says softly. Cause duh. This was a long-time coming…


End file.
